Shanghai (ZXZC)- SAIC Motor said on July 4 its vehicle sales for the first half of 2019 declined 16.62% year on year to 2,937,296 units.

For the first six months, the auto group output a total of 2,857,259 vehicles, facing a double-digit drop of 20.8% over a year ago.

As to the June performance, SAIC Motor saw its sales and outputs slide 15.97% and 16.13% respectively from the previous year to 466,539 units and 464,635 units.

(Photo source: SAIC Volkswagen)

In June, SAIC-GM gained a slight year-on-year growth of 0.21%, while SAIC Volkswagen didn't get rid of the sales downturn. Among the subsidiaries whose June sales exceeded 10,000 units, SAIC-GM-Wuling suffered the biggest year-on-year decrease.

However, compared to the sales volume in May, half of subsidiaries achieved positive growth. The sales of the champion, SAIC Volkswagen, remained basically the same as that of a month ago.

(Photo source: Roewe)

Besides, the China's biggest automaker has sold over 80,000 NEVs in the first half of the year, a year-on-year surge of 40%, the company announced on July 2.

SAIC Motor is ambitious to sell 7.1 million vehicles throughout 2019 with a growth of 0.6% compared with 2018, the automaker previously said. However, the current cumulative performance shows that the Shanghai-based auto giant has so far complete only 41% of its annual sales target.

The company has been experiencing a crucial personnel change recently. Wang Xiaoqiu, current Vice President of SAIC Motor will take the reins after the existing President Chen Zhixin's retirement, the Information Office of Shanghai Municipality revealed via its official Sina Weibo account.